theory Tanavast's Apocalyptic Log

[Oversleep]

We know that before Dalinar, the visions were sent to Gavilar (as Taravangian knows some of its contents since Gavilar confined in him).

Why? I suspect it has to do with the Way Of Kings and Alethi War Codes. Way of Kings probably is like a Bible to Radiants and if somebody follows its teachings, he or she becomes Radiant material as he or she exhibits behaviour and attitude which attracts spren. I suspect that combined with the Alethi Codes of War which, among others, contain teaching for what a leader should be, they make a Bondsmith material (as Bondsmiths seem to be about leading/uniting people: "I will unite instead of divide. I will bring men together" and the Divine Attribute of Guiding).
That would explain why the next recipient after Gavilar is his own brother. Because Dalinar did what Gavilar did. Followed the same teachings.

Now, I'm not sure whether Gavilar was chosen because of his actions to unite Alethkar or perhaps he united Alethkar because of the visions. I suspect it was the former, as he started behaving differently only recently.
Dalinar continues his work, becoming obsessed with keeping Alethkar whole.

But no, this is a distraction. Deviation. We must discuss the nature of my theory.

I say that the visions are sent to those who are proto-Bondsmiths. This makes sense, as Stormfather can sense those individuals (much like Shallan's lies attracted a Cryptic, Kaladin's behaviour attracted honorspren and so on). Perhaps he doesn't want to bond them, and who says he did? Maybe Dalinar was the first to actually progress to the point of bonding the Stormfather?
But I digress again.
Who said Dalinar was the second one to receive the visions? Who said Gavilar was the first to receive the visions? Maybe the visions were sent to him only after the previous candidate failed/died? Let's go further with that.

How many times were the visions sent throughout the history?

Did Sunmaker receive them? Maybe Talenel had a hard time back then and it made Stormfather react with selecting an individual. Then Talenel pulled himself together. Then he started breaking again in the modern times and visions were sent once again.

Edited August 19, 2016 by Oversleep

[The One Who Connects he/him]

“   That chanting, that singing, those rasping voices.”

—Collected on Kaktach 1173, 16 seconds pre-death, by the Silent Gatherers. Subject was a middle-aged potter who reported seeing strange dreams during highstorms during the previous two years.^[32]

From the Coppermind. I definitely agree that others received the visions, though this is the only other reference to them that I know of.

Edit: Format

Edited August 19, 2016 by The One Who Connects

[The Ninja Yodeler he/him]

2 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

“   That chanting, that singing, those rasping voices.”

—Collected on Kaktach 1173, 16 seconds pre-death, by the Silent Gatherers. Subject was a middle-aged potter who reported seeing strange dreams during highstorms during the previous two years.^[32]

From the Coppermind. I definitely agree that others received the visions, though this is the only other reference to them that I know of.

Edit: Format

The exact quote I thought of too. So, yeah, there were for sure other people who received visions. How far back, no idea.

[Yata he/him]

7 hours ago, Oversleep said:

But no, this is a distraction. Deviation. We must discuss the nature of my theory.

With this line I almost fall from the chair.... My only regret is not be capable to give another upvote just for that XD

Anyway we have at least three confirmed recipe of vision.

Gavillar, Dalinar and an unkonwn guy cited as a Death rattle's source.

Quote

That chanting, that singing, those rasping voices.”

—Collected on Kaktach 1173, 16 seconds pre-death, by the Silent Gatherers. Subject was a middle-aged potter who reported seeing strange dreams during highstorms during the previous two years.^[32]

We know from how many years Mr T collected the Rattles ? On Coppermind there aren't Recorded Rattles before the 1171 but may mean nothing.

To be honest I want to undercover the possibility than Dalinar began to recive his Vision after the death of this potter

[Oversleep]

I am not sure about that potter and his strange dreams. I mean, Kaladin also did have strange dreams during highstorm.

But I'm not convinced those are the same as the TAL which Gavilar and Dalinar received.

[Yata he/him]

2 hours ago, Oversleep said:

I am not sure about that potter and his strange dreams. I mean, Kaladin also did have strange dreams during highstorm.

But I'm not convinced those are the same as the TAL which Gavilar and Dalinar received.

Of course you have right, but Kal had a couple of weird dreams. To mention this oddly dreams in the highstorm I think it's possible to be a more regular experiences (maybe not dream at all).

But it's all a pure speculation.

[Landis963 he/him]

Wasn't Szeth also confirmed as a recipient of the visions?  Or is that just speculation?  

[Yata he/him]

44 minutes ago, Landis963 said:

Wasn't Szeth also confirmed as a recipient of the visions?  Or is that just speculation?  

To be honest I don't rememeber nothing like that, maybe I missed those informations

[The One Who Connects he/him]

5 hours ago, Oversleep said:

I am not sure about that potter and his strange dreams. I mean, Kaladin also did have strange dreams during highstorm.

But I'm not convinced those are the same as the TAL which Gavilar and Dalinar received.

Kaladin had a few, yes. But the potter had dreams during highstorms during the past two years. That timeframe alone seems significant in some way.

[goody153]

I thought that Kaladin only had a dream because he was connected with Syl. And it was Stormfather's way of letting him know about Odium reigning and what it must be like to be one with the storm. 

While Dalinar's dream wasn't related anything to the present(which was what Kaladin's highstorm dream was) but rather it was all of Almighty and scene's during desolations.

Edited August 20, 2016 by goody153

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

A while ago I saw a fascinating theory that the members of the heirocracy were receiving the same visions and trying to "unite them." I personally think this is actually quite likely. Sunmaker found no evidence of the visions, but they definitely could still have been there. I mean, storms, Dalinar himself thought that what his visions commanded him to do sounded disturbingly like what people did in the heirocracy. I imagine his visions have been visiting people for a long time... The reason Dalinar was able to bond the stormfather when all the other vision recipients weren't is probably because of the coming desolation, because it would seem that spren tend to bond people when a desolation is approaching.

[The One Who Connects he/him]

25 minutes ago, Drake Marshall said:

I personally think this is actually quite likely. Sunmaker found no evidence of the visions, but they definitely could still have been there. I mean, storms, Dalinar himself thought that what his visions commanded him to do sounded disturbingly like what people did in the heirocracy.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the Sunmaker's rule also where "future = voidbringer" started?

On that subject, the Heirocracy was described as the church taking over. i seem to remember Amaram wanting to restore the dominance of the church. Granted, he isn't really a trustworthy source.

Perhaps whoever controls the... (Sons of Honor?) is receiving visions too.

Edit: Spellcheck

Edited August 20, 2016 by The One Who Connects

[Rasarr she/her]

The visions are clearly some sort of prep before a Desolation, so I'm guessing they'd been appearing long before Kholin brothers got their hands on Way of Kings. Stormfather is apparently forced (by Tanavast's CogShadow?) to send them, so could he try cheating the system out of spite? Say, he's compelled to send the visions to someone exhibiting some set of qualities, but ol' Skyface can't be bothered to care about humanity's survival, so he finds a random person that technically meets the criteria, not caring whether said person is in position to change anything. Cue Gavilar, who, having read Way of Kings and adopted its teaching, becomes the perfect receiver that Stormy's forced to send visions to. When Gavilar dies, Stormfather returns to his previous MO - hence the random potter - until Dalinar adopts the same policies his brother did, becoming the perfect receiver. 

3 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the Sunmaker's rule also where "future = voidbringer" started?

On that subject, the Heirocracy was described as the church taking over. i seem to remember Amaram wanting to restore the dominance of the church. Granted, he isn't really a trustworthy source.

Perhaps whoever controls the... (Sons of Honor?) is receiving visions too.

Something like that, yeah - Hierocracy claimed to receive prophecies, so it had to be Sunmaker proclaiming them to be false. I wonder if an old idea someone had, that Sunmaker was inspired by Odium (who wanted to discredit future sight and keep Alethkar divided), has some truth to it. It could indeed be that Hierocracy started to unite people in preparation for possible desolation and Rayse sent Sunmaker to crash the party. 

I doubt that there are several vision-receivers out there at the same time, though. If you want your entire planet united, you don't send several unifiers, or you end up with the situation we're having at the moment, namely Tanavast Taravangian undermining Dalinar and thus leading to even more chaos. 

Edited August 20, 2016 by Rasarr

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

Restares is the one in charge of the Sons of Honor. I doubt he has visions for the reasons Rasarr bring up, but who knows?

As for Taravangian (pretty sure you meant Taravangian and not Tanavast) undermining Dalinar... Honor would indeed probably only create one such leader at a time. Taravangian is a testament to the fact that are agendas are also being pushed forward though. I personally have a theory that Taravangian's actions are tied to Cultivation having her own plan to save the world. It's probably hard for Cultivation to coordinate with honor when Tanavast is dead and I think by the definition of shard intents she would have to disagree with Honor on some things anyway.

Edited August 20, 2016 by Drake Marshall

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

On 8/20/2016 at 1:51 PM, Drake Marshall said:

Restares is the one in charge of the Sons of Honor. I doubt he has visions for the reasons Rasarr bring up, but who knows?

As for Taravangian (pretty sure you meant Taravangian and not Tanavast) undermining Dalinar... Honor would indeed probably only create one such leader at a time. Taravangian is a testament to the fact that are agendas are also being pushed forward though. I personally have a theory that Taravangian's actions are tied to Cultivation having her own plan to save the world. It's probably hard for Cultivation to coordinate with honor when Tanavast is dead and I think by the definition of shard intents she would have to disagree with Honor on some things anyway.

Agreed, I wouldn't think that Honor would be nearly as concerned for humanity's long-term survival as he is for preserving and maintaining human dignity.  Cultivation could justify sacrificing lives and condemning people to slaughter if it meant the survival of a seed of humanity that could again be cultivated.  Faced with the decision between fighting a hopeless battle to the death, or winning by using dishonorable or possibly reprehensible methods, I believe Honor would have to choose fighting to the death, for himself and everyone else.  The further they were backed into a corner the more they would disagree about what their strategy should be; I assume Odium capitalized on that in order to kill Tanavast in a way that Cultivation was unable/unwilling to intervene.

Edited August 22, 2016 by hwiles
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